With Halloween just around the corner, retail stores are already filling up with gifting ideas for your loved ones for the holiday season. This is a great time to remind the special people in your lives what they mean to you – whether that be through goods, gestures or words. This is also a good time to think sustainable.

As you pick out the perfect gifts – consider where and how the product has been produced, what materials it is made up of and the impact its disposal will have on the environment. Consider fair trade and sustainable brands to replace fast fashion products. Share the stories behind the brands and products you support.

Think about how you can use your dollar to not only improve the lives of others, but make a sustainable, long-lasting difference. This holiday season we encourage you to shop ethical, shop wisely and enable change everywhere.

“Pokémon may not be as popular as it was when it launched last year, but there is no denying it has become an icon in the popularity of mobile gaming, quickly becoming the most downloaded app of all time.

Now in 2017, its developer Niantic is asking users in the Swiss city of Davos to turn their attention from chasing Pokémon to understanding the major inequalities in the world.

s part of a new collaboration between Niantic, The Pokémon Company and the charity Project Everyone, 17 new PokéStops – places where you obtain valuable in-game items – have cropped up around Davos.

These 17 PokéStops coincide with the 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development that were agreed upon by 193 world leaders in 2015.

In addition to these new PokéStops, the Congress Centre – where much of the forum is being held – will be turned into a Pokémon Gym.

At these points in the game, a player would train their creatures to perform or battle it out with other human players. The centre will act as a place to train, in between trying to solve some of the world’s most pressing questions.

Finally, as part of the agreement, from spring of this year, additional in-game content will become available to continue to promote the importance of the Global Goals campaign organised by Project Everyone.”

It might feel like we could never run out of water, but water suitable for human consumption makes up just 3% of the world’s water. Photograph: From Guardian Sustainable Business by Marco Mattana/EPA

1. Water is central to sustainable development

2. “Peak water” is being taken increasingly seriously: Access to water is essential for cotton cultivation, dyeing and other manufacturing processes in the garment industry, There are many potential challenges that will arise from competition for water in the future

3. There’s a strong business case for the fashion industry to manage its water footprint: This can cut costs, increase revenues and save the business from the potential disastrous operational consequences of environmental disasters due to climate change

4. Water issues can be a non-competitive space: As most companies face similar risks across their supply chains, there is room for sharing of ideas and collaboration towards solutions

5. There is a broad consensus that production should stay put, rather than move to G20 countries

6. There are alternatives to water thirsty cotton

7. Recyling water is technically possible but still faces problems scaling up

8. Managing the water impacts of dyeing starts with good housekeeping: This includes low-cost measures such as stalling nozzles on hoses

9. Fashion brands can influence sustainable water use beyond factory walls: Through education and training of workers, sustainable practices can be adopted across communities and in homes.

It can be argued that demonstrating social impact is very important, however most social entrepreneurs are not very good and showing this. While some just might not see the results for their social projects yet, others simply do not understand how to demonstrate this social impact. There are a few tools out there for organizations interested in evaluating social impact such as the Social Return on Investment (SROI) analytics model.

“Social Return on Investment is an analytic tool for measuring and accounting for a much broader concept of value, taking into account social, economic and environmental factors.”

SROI is commonly used to come up with figures for the social value (or social impact) generated by products and services, such as the example quoted by nef that: “£1 invested in high-quality residential care for children generates a social return of between £4 and £6.10.”

However, while SROI has been proven to have sound basis principles (particularly tested in the UK, which has a substantially large social enterprise market), there are many other models to test social impact. The challenge is making sure these models encompass realistic objectives in comparison to the diversity and stages of various social enterprises, and whether social entrepreneurs know how to correctly use them when measuring their businesses.

As presented in recent article in The Guardian:

Different approaches will be suitable for different social enterprises but there’s no excuse for not measuring your impact in some way. The growth in social investment and the introduction of the Public Services (Social Value) Act means that some social enterprises will be under increasing pressure to demonstrate their social impact to other funders and commissioners but that’s only part of the point.

The key issue is that, as social enterprises, we need to know what we’re trying to do and whether it’s working. If we, as people running social enterprise don’t have the time and resources to work out what we’re doing and how it’s making the world a better place, we probably don’t have the time and resources to run an organisation at all.

‘When Filipe Santos began teaching Social Enterprise at INSEAD in 2004 very few of his students had any interest in developing businesses which had a social impact. Now more than 30 percent of his students want to make a social difference. “The time is ripe for a new social impact model,” says Santos. “We see a lot of problems in developed and developing countries that are not being addressed by markets. It’s not just poverty, it’s about things breaking down around long-term unemployment, exclusion from society, healthcare. Problems that society and governments are not able to invest in. For me, social enterprise is the process of developing sustainable solutions for some of these neglected areas.”’

While Thatcher would not be the first person to come into your mind when one talked about the rise of social enterprise in the UK. However, what Thatcher had done in her role as the head of the British government had quite a profound effect on social enterprise.

“Thatcher introduced the idea that government should stop being the default employer and that the public sector needed mixed models of delivery – thinking that has been shared by successive governments ever since.”

This idea, of mixed markets in the public sector and that unfettered competition can give us quality and affordability still exists till this day. If anything, the banking crisis and recent turmoil has proved the importance of this model more thoroughly.

“… only a combination of competition tempered by social value can create affordable and sustainable world-class public services.”

As we anticipated Earth Day during the month of April, we thought it would be great to look at interesting movement in the environmental space. Our article series titled “Earth Day Everyday” consisted of stories, tips and trends related to sustainability and the environment.

Today we celebrate Earth Day 2013 and are excited to end our “Earth Day Everyday” series for 2013 with this video that celebrates ethical fashion and its impact on the environment.

As we celebrate the upcoming Earth Day, we thought it would be great to look at interesting movement in the environmental space. Stay tuned for our article series titled “Earth Day Everyday” for stories, tips and trends related to sustainability and the environment.

“Sponsored by Ernst & Young, the 2013 Retail Sustainability Report examines activities and trends across RILA’s membership, and offers a detailed view of the industry’s adoption of sustainability programs, which strive for benefits from improved customer loyalty to decreased costs to more resilient supply chains. Data was drawn from survey responses by RILA member companies, which collectively represent more than 65,000 locations and $1 trillion in global revenue…

The survey uncovered six significant trends:

Sustainability teams are growing.

Most companies act on sustainability investments that expect a two- to three-year payback.

Breadth of sustainability activities is increasing.

Most retailers measure energy, fuel, material usage, and waste generation; more than 25 percent more will begin to measure code of conduct compliance, water usage, renewable energy generation, chemicals of concern and more over the next two years.

Pressure for retail sustainability efforts is strongest from employees, competitors, and regulators.

Certain identifiable attributes contribute to the growth and success of a retail sustainability program.”

As we celebrate the upcoming Earth Day, we thought it would be great to look at interesting movement in the environmental space. Stay tuned for our article series titled “Earth Day Everyday” for stories, tips and trends related to sustainability and the environment.

One exciting trend we have noticed is the growing governmental encouragement for the use of solar power in many states in India. In fact, some state governments is encouraging net metering facilities, which provide consumers to generate solar power for self-consumption and feeding excess power into the grid. These solar PV plants can be set up in unutilized places such as roof-tops, dump sites, residential buildings, offices and other institutions.

To further encourage this trend, the national government is providing a subsidy of up to 30% of the cost of the panel with a capacity of up to 500 KW without battery power.

In a country that has faced a constant struggle with providing electricity to its vast growing populous, could solar and other forms of alternative energy be the sustainable solution to providing energy to even the most rural parts of the nation? With governments backing such projects, and the general public becoming more aware of environment implications of non-sustainable energy production, we are excited to continue following this trend.

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The Bay & Harbour Blog

Bay & Harbour is the brainchild of a Toronto-based mother/daughter team with an eye for trend-setting, unique and high-quality fashion & lifestyle products.

The pair is inspired by different cultures, handicraft techniques, discrete designs, and fashion trends from their travels around the world. Bay & Harbour as their outlet to share that love of design with others.

The Bay & Harbour collections feature a variety of accessories & lifestyle products for both men & women.

The co-founders are passionate about fashion with a cause. Many of the Bay & Harbour collections also include pieces that are sustainable and / or ethically made.